Air Conflicts is a fun, easy and enjoyable time filler. Campaign based missions flying for the RAF, Luftwaffe or VVS.
Secondly, the game focusses entirely on the European theatre of operations and you fly planes of the RAF, Luftwaffe and VVS (that's the Soviet Airforce). There are however no USAAF planes (so there won't be any Mustang or Flying Fortess aircraft); not that this is an issue.
Thirdly, the game is based on historical campaigns ... you essentially sign on as a pilot in one of the airforces and fly in a series of missions that comprise a campaign. When you get shot-down by the enemy you will "automatically" bail-out and continue with the campaign. The campaigns do not follow the same script each time and you may or may not access subsequent missions in the historical timeline depending on whether you are shot down or not. Campaigns may end prematurely if you perform very badly (ie get shot down all the time). When one campaign ends the next one begins. You can withdraw from a mission if your aircraft is badly damaged (or you can abort if you've just had enough ... rather than crashing). Note: you can land at a friendly airstrip to replenish your ammunition during a mission.
You are given a briefing (and historical context) prior to each mission (generally air superiority, ground strike, escort or bombing) and you then select your preferred aircraft from those available to you. The recommended aircraft will be the most appropriate ones for the mission.
Depending on how you perform on missions and in campaigns you may be promoted, receive (historical) medals and/or replacement aircraft.
The RAF campaigns are:
1) Battle of Britain (incl. air battles over France and Norway)
2) North Africa
3) D-Day
The Luftwaffe campaigns are:
1) Bltzkrieg (incl. air battles over Poland, France and Norway)
2) Desert Fox
3) East Front
The VVS (Soviet) campaigns are:
1) The Winter War (Soviet attack on Finland 1939)
2) The Patriotic War
3) Stalingrad
4) Soviet Offensive
During a campaign you proceed through a range of aircraft. The usual progression sees you graduating from fighters to fighter-bombers to medium/heavy bombers and finally to jets. There is only one aircraft of each type per airforce you fly for. I cannot say for sure whether, if for example you are flying for the Luftwaffe, that your Messerschmitt 109 improves from the E to the G sub-models, perhaps it does? What does change is the aircraft's camouflage (skin) depending on the terrain and/or season ... so you have desert camouflage in North Africa and winter camouflage as appropriate.
My experience, or feel, is that all the aircraft fly pretty much the same by type, although I assume each plane is actually programmed with unique physics.
Bombers are fairly robust and the "crew" in the various gunner positions do a reasonable job of dispatching enemy fighters ... I suggest you use the camera views (W-looking to rear, A-looking right, D-looking left and S-looking down/bomb aiming) to assist your crew in lining up targets. Jets only appear in the final campaigns. The German jet, the Gotha/Horten 229, which looks like something out of a sci-fi movie, was built but never became operational.
Aircraft inventory by airforce, with Wikipedia links for the more obscure types, follows (F=fighter, FB=fighter bomber, DB/MB/HB=dive/medium/heavy bomber, J=jet figher bomber):
RAF aircraft:
F: Spitfire Mk IX
FB: Mosquito Mk IV
HB: Lancaster
J: Gloster Meteor
Luftwaffe aircraft:
F: Messerscmitt Bf109 F2
DB: Ju 87B-2 Stuka
MB: Heinkel 111H-2
J: Horten Ho 229 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horten_Ho_229
VVS (Soviet) aircraft:
F: Lavochkin La-5FN
FB: IL2 Type 3
MB: IL DB3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilyushin_DB-3
J: Bi 01 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bereznyak-Isayev_BI-1
Graphically the 3D aircraft skins are very good. Ground terrain seems fairly generic by locale, but you do get a reasonable "feel" for desert, Aegean islands, the plains of Russia. There is no major city terrain to uniquely depict the different cities of London, Moscow, Budapest or Berlin. The night combat missions are visually stunning especially with the tracers lighting up the sky.
Ground targets are also generic. All Western Allied tanks are Shermans, irrespective of whether you are in 1939 Poland or 1943 North Afica, all Soviet tanks are T-34s and all German tanks Tigers, irrespective of historical date. The most challenging missions, I think, are to do with escorting/protecting naval vessels ... lots of fun to be had. The least challenging missions are when you are flying a bomber ... though it is fun to blow stuff up!
Overall this game, depending on your predisposition, can either present hours of fun or can be used as a filler to unwind between more challenging/serious games. I only noticed one "glitch" which was related to taking off with the Mosquito ... I kept running out of runway and crashing ... the Mosquito works fine if it starts the mission in the air.
SUMMARY: Recommended. By all means try the demo first, available here at Gamespot, but you really cannot go wrong for a few hours of fun, especially at the "bargain bin" price Air Conflicts retails for. I'm sure there are other arcade style air combat games out there ... but this will do me fine.
Update: In addition to the W, A and D alternate angle view keys, two others not listed in the manual are: (NumPad) Enter, which gives you an aesthetic circling view of your aircraft, and (NumPad) 0, which fixes the camera at its current location allowing you to watch your plane fly into the distance.